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Association between vitamin D deficiency and antepartum and postpartum depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies

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Abstract

Purpose

The two previous reviews performed on the association of vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy with antepartum and postpartum depression were limited in reporting forms as they were both systematic reviews and the conclusions were also deemed to be inconclusive. Considering the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and depression during and after pregnancy as well as their numerous hazards to pregnancy outcomes, it is of great need to synthesize existing evidence in a more accurate statistical method, so that reliable guidance related to vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy could be provided for clinical decision making.

Methods

We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the association of vitamin D deficiency with antepartum and postpartum depression.

Results

Nine longitudinal studies with 8470 participants were included in the meta-analysis. We found serum 25(OH)D levels < 50 nmol/l was associated with 2.67 times (OR 3.67; 95% CI 1.72–7.85) increased risk of postpartum depression than those 25(OH)D levels ≥ 50 nmol/l, but we did not find a significant association between low vitamin D levels and depressive symptoms during pregnancy with a serum 25(OH)D cut-off level of 30 nmol/l (OR 1.47; 95% CI 0.92–2.36).

Conclusions

The low status of maternal vitamin D could be an adverse factor for postpartum depression, but the available evidence suggested no association between vitamin D deficiency and depressive symptoms during pregnancy. However, this result should be interpreted with caution owning to the small number of studies. Well-designed intervention studies are also needed to further evaluate the benefits of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy.

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Funding

This study was funded by research funds from the Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016M601389).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Jie Wang, Na Liu, Weijia Sun, Dandan Chen, Jingxia Zhao & Wei Zhang

Authors
  1. Jie Wang
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  2. Na Liu
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  3. Weijia Sun
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  4. Dandan Chen
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  5. Jingxia Zhao
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  6. Wei Zhang
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Contributions

JW: project development, literature searching, articles’ screening, manuscript writing. NL: data extraction, manuscript writing. WS: literature searching. DC: articles’ screening. JZ: data extraction. WZ: project development

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei Zhang.

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Conflict of interest statement

Author JW declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author NL declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author WS declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author DC declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author JZ declares that she has no conflict of interest. Author WZ declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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Wang, J., Liu, N., Sun, W. et al. Association between vitamin D deficiency and antepartum and postpartum depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Arch Gynecol Obstet 298, 1045–1059 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-018-4902-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-018-4902-6

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